EVs are just superior

So there is it... 42k after 18 months. The battery still going strong and no degradation of performance. The best car I ever had let me do something else today... From 100% charge a 57 mile drive from the coast to beyond Julian, CA at 4800 ft, and then back to Ramona 27 miles away, with 10% to spare. This was due to the Santa Isabel chargers offline. I was at 12 % and decided to try my luck. Even that long after owning the car I have to admit it was quite the experience. The car went from 17.5% of charge at the top of the hill at 4800 ft in Harrison Park to 10% in Ramona at roughly 1400 ft. Yes I have NO FAST DC. And NO this is NOT a REX version. I hate gasoline and everything that goes with this noxious and toxic substance akin to heroin for the economy.

The battery is as strong as ever and my average is about 120-130 miles a day. There is exactly 0 issues with the car. And the new rear tires I installed a few months back which were the only item needed in more than a year will look like they will last more than the 25k of the factory ones. If there are any doubters about how advanced BMW i3's battery technology is here is proof in the pudding... a car driven relentlessly and very hard and the battery pack shows absolutely no sign of charging fatigue. I think this is where the i3 shines and is set apart.

And so the endless and pleasurable driving of the EV continues and I blew past the 30k mark before I even knew it. Several things that I learned: 1) One will adapt to the charging times and include them in any activity. 2) Switching to a lower carbon footprint means some rewarding changes 3) The battery capacity has not changed one bit... which makes me hopeful for the next 100k or so The i3 is definitely the best car I ever owned and embodies a disruption greater than Tesla's offerings, because of its tires and usage of space inside as well as the minimalistic consoles, all direct consequences of a lack of a large ICE engine in the front as well as the mechanical simplicity of a skateboard model where the flat batteries and the electric engine are at the bottom. Countless articles have been written on EVs but I doubt anyone has used one to such a degree as I did during a full year, especially considering I only have Level 2 charging possible on my model.

So 1 year of ownership and 28400 miles done! This means almost 80 miles a day on average. Given my average speed is 40 mph that means more than 700 hrs spent driving the car. About 6 MW of energy used. The fact is an electric vehicle makes you drive more and enjoy it ever more compared to a gasoline dirty, noisy and polluting contraption. And my i3 still smells like new! I have learned so many things and among them that BEVs are far superior to fossil fuel crappy cars. As ICE vehicle are inferior by the very design. Many more years of superior driving experience to come! For the financial part... I paid maybe $50 in electricity costs for the year vs. 4-5k in gas I would have paid assuming 80-100 fillups. On top of the 7.5k federal tax credit I got that means I was way positive cash flow this year as if I was paid to have the car and drove it for free. Not bad.

It's the VALUE you get - Buffet

So that moment came... after 27k miles I will change the tires as I noticed the thread being very worn out. So I went online and find the same type and got them shipped in a day... $90 each. That makes the BMW i3 a car with decently priced tires, considering how specialized they are. This is pretty much the ONLY required maintenance on the car. As far as the battery last and so far there hasn't been any reduction in range that I noticed. I can still do 120 miles from Murrieta to Santa Monica on a single charge.

I now average 700 miles or so per week commuting 60 miles each way and some mountain driving on week-ends, courtesy of all those chargepoint stations. When commuting to Santa Monica I was averaging 1000 miles a week so having an EV and that freedom to go anywhere on a whim really makes you drive a lot. I am sometimes jealous of not having a Fast DC port but the average cost of a level 2 station is a few K vs. 100-200 grands for a Fast DC outlet. There is no noticeable reduction in battery capacity and I often top it off. Kudos to the metrolink chargers in Anaheim that pump close to 6.7 kw. Strangely enough the paid chargers nearby only average 5.6. I read about the Toyota Mirai and definitely like the fact fuel cell technology seems operational and below a 7 figures price tag for the first time in hundreds of years but the infrastructure is the Achile's heel of it: 1) $1 million per hydrogen fueling station. A grand total of 10 in SoCal now 2) Hard to image how someone can refuel a...